


Red and Blue

by Methoxyethane



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Childhood Friends, Fluff, Humor, M/M, POV Alternating, Pokemon Journey, Rivals to Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 12,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22947604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Methoxyethane/pseuds/Methoxyethane
Summary: Lance was destined to be the best water-type pokemon trainer the world had ever seen. Keith just wanted to live happily with his pokemon, getting the most out of every day and having fun battling. Neither one could figure out why their pokemon seem to keep falling in love with each other, though.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 206





	1. Chapter 1

(Lance, 13)

Lance had a dream. He was going to be a pokemon trainer, and not just any trainer. He was going to be the very best, like no one ever was. And now, at age thirteen, he was finally ready to start his pokemon journey. 

He hadn’t been able to start at ten like everyone else because he’d been too busy helping us his family on their farm back home in Alola, but now he and his sister Veronica had moved to Kanto together, and Lance was ready. He had two pokemon by his side, and adventure was waiting for him.

The popplio he’d gotten from Professor Kukui as a going away present when he’d left Akala Island, and was still low level. She and Lance had already bonded on the long move from Alola to Kanto, and he had named her Odette. 

His other pokemon he’d had for much longer, a few years at least. His mother had gotten hold of an egg that someone didn’t need, and she had given it to Lance to take care of until it hatched. The vulpix that had been inside the egg was a beautiful white, so Lance had named her Snowbelle and the two had been together ever since.

With these two partners by his side, he was confident he could overcome anything. He’d join the great Water Type trainers like Wallace and Lorelei in the annals of history, and today was his very first step forward.

He started in Viridian city where Veronica had moved to. There was even a gym in town, but no matter how long he waited the gym leader was never around, so it looked like Lance was better off leaving for the next town than trying to fight him.

So he made his way north to Pewter City, excited to see what kinds of pokemon Kanto had in store for him. Before he’d gotten even halfway there, however, he found his first encounter with another trainer.

He met another boy his age, who looked about thirteen like him. Lance didn’t know how long he’d been battling but he had a growlithe traveling by his side, and that meant he had to be a trainer. 

So Lance did the only natural thing to do at a time like this. He challenged the other boy to a battle, thinking that with his new popplio against a fire-type growlithe he’d have an easy win.

The boy looked at Lance from under the brim of his little red hat, saying nothing. “Okay,” he eventually agreed. “Don’t cry when you lose.” He nodded to his dog, and the match was on.

Lance growled, shouting for Odette to use water gun. The rowdy growlithe avoided it easily, and with a shout of, “Komso, use bite!” Lance’s poor little popplio was taken out.

Lance called her back into her pokeball to heal, sending out Snowbelle instead. The boy called back his growlithe when he saw Lance’s vulpix, throwing a pokeball into the field. 

Another vulpix popped out of the ball, but it was red instead of Snowbelle’s white. The two vulpixes stared each other down with adorable little growls, and they were so cute for a second Lance wanted to stop the battle to cuddle them both. 

“Vulpix, use quick attack now!” The other boy ordered while Lance was distracted, and Snowbelle stumbled and barely avoided getting a direct hit. Her own attack missed again, and with a single call of “Fire spin,” Snowbelle was trapped in a vortex of flames and Lance had to call forfeit before she got seriously hurt.

The other boy called back his vulpix, looking at Lance expectantly. “Anything else?”

Lance stomped his foot on the ground, cursing as many sewer words as he had ever dared to say. “You!” He called out to the boy, pointing at him. “What’s your name?!”

“Keith,” the boy said, his vulpix cooing in agreement. 

“Well, I’m Lance!” Lance shouted back. “And I’m not letting this go! I’ll find you again and I’ll win next time, you hear me?”

“If you say so,” the other boy shrugged. 

Sounded like he STILL wasn’t taking Lance seriously! “I mean it! From now on you and I are rivals, you got it? RIVALS! And next time you see me, I’ll be much stronger, you just wait!”

The boy, Keith, gave him the first hint of a smile he’d seen so far. “We’ll see when we get there, I guess.”

Lance stormed off back to the pokemon center in Viridian, vowing that he’d train in the forest and then challenge Keith again.

—


	2. Chapter 2

(Keith, 13)

Keith had been a trainer for almost six month now, and had officially decided that pokemon were better than people in pretty much every conceivable way.

Pokemon didn’t make fun of you, and if you got into a fight with a pokemon they didn’t tell the teachers on you. When you bonded with a pokemon they stayed with you for life, and no pokemon had every pretended to be someone’s friend just to publicly humiliate them later.

They weren’t mean like kids, they weren’t pretentious and overbearing like adults. Keith would rather spend every day out in the world traveling and battling with his pokemon friends than ever try and make human friends again.

The only exception to that rule was his brother, Shiro. Shiro was brave and cool and understanding, a former league champion turned teacher and the only person in Keith’s life to never let Keith down. He was the only person who trusted Keith knew what he was doing, and in return he was the only person Keith trusted back.

Shiro had even been the one to give Keith his first pokemon. He’d caught a baby growlithe while he was on a lecture tour and brought it home to give to Keith, and together they had named it Kosmo. Kosmo had been the first pokemon Keith had ever been trusted with, and the first one he was ever able to form a strong bond with, and Keith knew they’d never be apart from each other’s side.

When he’d started out his journey the first pokemon he’d battled had been a simple pidgey. He hadn’t caught it, because Keith didn’t believe in hoarding pokemon you didn’t plan on using and he knew he’d never need a pidgey. No, the first pokemon Keith had caught had been a wild vulpix, a little baby he’d found sniffing around his camp one day when he’d been feeding Kosmo. 

Those had been his only two pokemon for a long time. It wasn’t until after he’d met someone interesting enough to declare Keith their eternal rival that he’d ended up collecting any more, and before that Keith hadn’t even really planned on it.

But there was something about that other boy, the one with the weird foreign water pokemon… even though Keith had won like he always did, battling with him had been fun instead of boring. It was… interesting. Keith wanted to find out if there were more trainers he could connect with like that.

And that meant first he’d have to start taking his pokemon training more seriously. Which made it kind of ironic that he found the next pokemon in his party on accident, too.

He’d been up in Celadon City trying for his very first gym badge, thinking that a gym leader would have to be someone who was fun to face. Before he got the chance to even find the gym however, he ran into a bunch of school kids playing with a cat.

It was a litten, he realized when he got closer, probably someone’s pet that had gotten loose. Hopefully it didn’t belong to any of these boys, because they didn’t seem to be treating it very nicely. One of them was pulling hard on it’s whiskers and laughing, and Keith had had about all he could of watching at that point.

“Hey!” He called out, Kosmo out of his pokeball and growling at his side. “What are you guys doing to that poor pokemon?”

“None of your business, nerd.” One of the boys told him back, getting defensive because he knew he was doing something wrong.

“It’s my business if your hurting it,” Keith said, and Kosmo barked in agreement.

There was a brief argument, but it didn’t turn into a scuffle because Keith had a pokemon and the boys picking on the litten were still too young to have Trainer IDs and be allowed to keep any. Everyone knew whoever had a pokemon backing them up automatically had the advantage in a fight, even if there were four boys to only one Keith.

They ended up running away, and Keith leaned down to address the pokemon they had been abusing. “You alright little guy? Need to go to a pokemon center, or can I leave you to go back to your family?”

The kitten meowed at him, licking his hand. “I don’t speak cat, but I’m assuming you’re alright?”

The little litten mewed at him again, stepping forward on little bitty paws. Keith nodded, assuming that meant it was alright, and prepared to leave it behind. “Alright, good luck little fella. Don’t get caught by those boys again, okay?”

And with that, he turned around to leave. 

He got about twenty feet away before he realized the litten was following him. “Would you quit that? I told you to go home already.”

The litten looked up at him curiously, and gave another little meow. “You’ve gotta have a home, you’re too cute to be a stray. I’m not stealing someone’s pokemon, okay?”

The kitten meowed at him again, and this time Kosmo looked up at Keith and gave him a little whine, too. 

“Seriously, now you too?” Keith sighed heavily. “Fine, you can come with me to the gym. But after that I’m figuring out where you belong and bringing you back there.”

The kitten meowed happily, and jumped up onto his shoulder. 

Needless to say, there was no getting rid of this one.

—


	3. Chapter 3

(Lance, age 14)

Three gym badges later, and Lance had finally found Keith again. He’d never been more excited to battle anyone in his life, and this time, he knew he was ready.

They’d met in Fuchsia City, each of them getting ready to battle the gym leader there, some kind of supposed ninja master. They’d decided to battle to see who would battle the gym leader first, and Lance was certain this time he had the upper hand for sure.

His popplio, after a lot of hard work and battling together, had evolved into a brionne! She was just as cute as she had been before, but now with more power than ever. Keith’s pokemon didn’t stand a chance.

“I’ll get you for sure this time!” Lance was declaring, sending out his beloved Odette into the field. 

“Let’s try out my newest pokemon,” Keith said almost to himself, pulling out a pokeball. “Let’s go, charmander!”

Lance was thinking to himself that a tiny little charmander would be no match for his newly evolved Odette. They’d never know if it was or not though, because the second that little lizard popped out of its pokeball Lance’s jaw dropped, thoroughly distracted from the pokemon battle.

Because there on the field like it was perfectly normal, sparkled a bright golden charmander. Not its normal orange, but an unmistakable glimmering  _ gold _ .

“You have -” Lance stuttered, pointing at the gleeful little lizard bouncing at Keith’s feet. “You have a shiny!”

Keith looked down at his charmander. “Shiny? I guess he’s a little shiny. Mostly I think that’s because his scales are so clean now that he’s gotten a bath?”

Lance sputtered out a disgraceful, “Are you an idiot? Do you not know what a shiny pokemon is?”

Keith locked eyes with his charmander, who now seemed confused that they weren’t starting the battle yet. “Oh right,” he said dumbly. “When a pokemon has a mutation and turns up a weird color, right? I didn’t even notice.”

“How could you not notice!” Lance flailed. “He’d bright stupid gold!”

“I just thought he looked a little pale,” Keith shrugged. “Figured he needed more sunlight.”

“You know the odds of finding a shiny are like, one in four THOUSAND, right? And you didn’t even notice when you caught him?!”

“I only caught him because he wandered into my camp snooping around for food,” Keith said. “I’m not really the type to collect pokemon willy-nilly. He just seemed kind of helpless, so I figured I’d bring him along.”

Lance buried his face in his hands. “I don’t even wanna fight you anymore,” He said flatly. 

He did, however, REALLY wanna catch his own shiny. Something even cooler than Keith’s, like a gyarados.

He’d show Keith who was the cooler trainer out of the two of them, for sure! He wouldn’t be left behind!”

\--


	4. Chapter 4

(Keith, age 14)

There was something about that weird boy Keith kept running into that really made Keith want to take training pokemon more seriously. Lance was so passionate and full of energy, and you could tell he loved his pokemon just as much as Keith did, which even in this pokemon obsessed world they lived in was still saying a lot.

It made Keith wanna actually buckle down and train his pokemon to battle, made him wanna battle gyms and test his Pokémon’s skill against the nation’s most elite. But for that, he’d probably need more than four pokemon. Six, probably. Or at least five.

And since the ones he’d collected so far were all fire types, he figured he might as well go with that theme. Be one of the great fire-type specialists like Kabu and Malva. Conquer the Pokemon League, and whatnot.

So he traveled over to Route 17 to find himself an eevee. Eevees were a little tricky, since they could evolve into anything, but Keith was sure he could save up for a fire stone and evolve one into a flareon before it randomly decided it wanted to be like… A sylveon or something. Probably.

It took hours of searching to find one at all, and the little bugger escaped before Keith could catch him. This, Keith realized, could easily be an all-day adventure. And so, Keith did what he always did to catch pokemon. He settled down to camp, and waited for one to come to him.

Naturally, it only took about a half hour before he found no one other than Lance the water trainer wandering with his weird little white vulpix trailing at his feet. “You!” He shouted, pointing rudely at Keith. “What are you doing here! Are you stalking me or something?!”

“Quiet down, you’ll scare away all the pokemon,” Keith said back. “And how could I be stalking you when I was the one here first?”

Lance just scowled at him, his vulpix chirping in annoyed agreement with its master. Keith rolled his eyes, and went back to scanning the grass for any signs of tiny brown movement.

The other trainer was still grumbling in irritation as he stomped off, storming around the field and battling any random raticate he could find. Why, Keith didn’t ask. Just let the noise startle all the other pokemon into running in Keith’s direction.

He didn’t know how long it took, but eventually another eevee popped it’s little head out of the grass. Keith tossed a pokeball at it and waited to see if it took, a few long rattles before the ball cooled down and dinged a quiet beep of success.

Keith grinned in triumph, running over to retrieve the pokeball from the grass. He he his new eevee out of the ball to greet it properly, finding her a girl with softly curious personality, sniffing around his camp and Keith and his other pokemon with quiet interest. What a cutie.

“Are you serious?” Lance complained, back again at Keith’s camp within an hour of his catching his new friend. “Ugh, of course you are. Of course you came here to catch and eevee too, and of COURSE you get one before I can come and show off mine. You suck, dude.”

Keith nodded. “You wanna sit down and have some curry with us?”

The new eevee companion at Lance’s feet trilled at him hopefully. Rolling his eyes, Lance plopped himself down to sit by Keith’s campfire. “Sure, why not.”

Dusk was setting by the time Lance found him and it was night by the time the curry was done cooking. So Lance spent the night with their two tents set up side by side, sharing a campfire as their freshly caught eevees played with each other.

Lance, Keith found out, had some of the worst stories Keith had ever heard. Somehow, he was the best storyteller he’d ever heard at the same time. Keith listened to him all night.

—


	5. Chapter 5

(Lance, age 15)

So, Lance had caught himself an eevee with the intention of evolving it into a vaporeon, right? Right. Well, things didn’t exactly go as planned. 

It was Lance’s own fault. Everyone knew if you cared what your eevee evolved into you had to take specific measures, like practicing dark-type moves and taking your eevee out of its pokeball in the nighttime if you wanted an umbreon, and hanging out in forests with moss stones in them if you wanted a Leafeon. Or you know, buy a fucking evolution stone like smart peope did, but whatever, Lance didn’t need to bother with that yet! He’d had this vulpix for years and she’d never evolved, why would his eevee be in such a hurry?

Haha, the joke was on him. And you’ll never guess what the snarky little bastard picked to evolve into - a flareon, of all fucking pokemon. All that work of catching him, all those months of training him, and he’d decided to spite Lance by turning into the exact OPPOSITE of a vaporeon. 

Keith, being the little shit that he was, had laughed possibly for the first time in human history when Lance had shown him, the next time they met. And while Lance had maybe always wanted to hear that sound now was hardly the best time, THANKS KEITH.

“I’m sorry,” Keith said in between breathless chuckles. “No, but you don’t understand why it’s so funny.” He pulled a pokeball off of his belt and opened it up, out pouring onto the ground none other than a vaporeon. Just the kind Lance had been aiming for.

“Oh that’s just ridiculous,” Lance said with a roll of his eyes, watching as the pair of former eevees instantly gravitated towards one another for a snuggle, admiring each other’s newly evolved forms with a pair of happy chirps.

Still watching them, Lance couldn’t help it. The snort of laughter bubbled out of him before he knew it was coming, because nothing could be funnier than this. Lance the water trainer and Keith the fire trainer, eternal rivals, each with the wrong eeveelution at their side. Eeveelutions who seemed particularly keen towards each other, at that, romping around merrily with each other like they were just that happy to see one another.

“Should we… Should we try and trade pokemon? That seems like the most rational thing to do here,” Lance said eventually, watching his flareon playfully headbutt its vaporeon friend.

Keith was watching them, too. “I know it does, but… I’ve never traded a pokemon before.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Lance said carefully. “I mean, it’s only been a few months, but…”

“...But we raised these eevees ourselves, that whole time.” Keith finished for him, apparently having the same moral dilemma as Lance right now.

They stared at the pair of pokemon on the grass, playing cheerfully with no clue as to their owner’s intentions. 

“Augggh!” Lance groaned, scratching the back of his head. “I can’t do it! I bathed this handsome little guy with my own hands, I can’t just abandon him to the whims of fate like that!”

“Well,” Keith raised an eyebrow. “Not the whims of fate, as much as you’d be giving him to me, but.” He sighed, smiling a little. “Yeah, I see your point. I’d feel bad separating from my friend now after all we’ve been through together.”

Aww, did Keith refer to his pokemon as his friends? That was actually kind of cute. 

And the two pokemon in question were definitely friends with each other. Had they known each other in the wild before Lance and Keith had caught them, or had they just made friends because Lance and Keith saw and battled and talked to each other that often?

Watching them now, Lance could only think one thing. “Well, shoot,” he said, hands landing on his hips. “At this rate, we’re gonna need to start travelling together just for the sake of not separating them!”

Keith laughed again. The sound, Lance decided, was warm and sweet. He liked it.

\--


	6. Chapter 6

(Keith, Age 15)

So, Keith and Lance had started traveling together on their pokemon journey. It was weird at first, having someone around all the time by Keith’s side who could actually talk back to him was definitely something that needed getting used to, but in the end Keith decided it wasn’t so bad. 

Lance wasn’t terrible company and his pokemon were well trained and even more loved, and it was all worth the effort of having to put up with Lance 24/7 when their vaporeon and flareon were so happy to be able to be together like this. What could he say, Keith had a weakness for his pokemon.

“The fastest way back to Cerulean City is through Mt Moon, I’m sure of it,” Lance was currently trying to argue, even though Keith knew better.

“It’s not, though! There’s a shortcut around Pewter, we just have to find the road that goes through!”

“We’ve been LOOKING for your magic shortcut for over three hours, Keith! At some point you have to face it, a shortcut isn’t a shortcut if we can never FIND it!”

Keith huffed in anger, but after another half hour of making circles around Pewter City he was ready to give in and track all the way through the middle of Mt Moon. 

“This is so stupid,” he muttered the entire way into the caves. “Who makes the only accessible road between two towns THROUGH an entire mountain? Just made a road over it, or around like rational people do.”

“Yeah, but the road through Mt Moon is FASTER,” Lance argued lightly, cheerful now that he’d gotten his way. 

“It’s also full of goddamned zubats.”

“Then catch one, if you’re so annoyed by them! I bet you’ll make friends right away,” Lance laughed.

Keith kicked him in the shin. Lance yelped, and Keith’s charmeleon, currently leading the party so he could light the way with the flame on his tail, snorted in amusement.

Naturally, it took only about another half an hour to realize they’d gotten off trail and wound up totally lost. Mt Moon was full of wayfarers and tourists on their way through just the same as Keith and Lance were, so it should have been easy to stay on the beaten path and scurry their way through the tunnels to Cerulean. But soon all the caves were getting darker and all the pokemon more ferocious, and it occurred to at least Keith that they were probably lost.

It took another entire two hours for Lance to admit the same. Whoever carved out these tunnels were DICKS. Probably a bunch of rogue onix who got into some crack or something. Cocaine onix. Now THAT was a scary thought.

“Hey, what’s that?” Lance asked suddenly, voice dropped low to a whisper in the dark. “I think I just saw something weird.”

“It was probably just another zubat,” Keith scoffed, deeply annoyed and deciding Lance was to blame.

“No, it was like… pink! Tiny and pink!”

“Pink?” Keith asked. “This is Mt. Moon. The only pink pokemon ever sighted in this mountain are…”

Both of them snapped their heads to look at each other at once. “Clefairy!” They said, almost in unison.

The two trainers nodded to each other, and without a word ran off to follow the tail of the clefairy Lance had caught sight of, charmeleon waddling after them with a confused growl.

They scurried as quietly as they could, not wanting to scare away their quarry. Not that Keith had any intentions of trying to catch it when they found it - he just wanted to SEE the stupid thing. There was a breeding service for them somewhere so clefairy weren’t that rare to see in battle, but seeing one in the wild was almost as good as seeing one of the legendary birds in person - it just didn’t happen.

Which is why you could imagine Keith’s surprise when they finally found their wayward little friend. Not only was their indeed one clefairy - but when Keith and Lance walked in to the opening of the next tunnel to find it illuminated by moonlight through the cracks in the ceiling, they found something that put them both in awe.

There was a giant sparkling rock in the center of the cavern, and surrounding it? A whole hoard of clefairy, dancing and singing circles around the giant stone. Keith and Lance stepped carefully into the cavern, watching as the pokemon danced around in some bizarre ritual neither of them could name.

“Are they… praying?” Lance whispered, voice struck with awe.

Keith nodded silently. “I think so.” Behind Keith, even charmeleon seemed stricken in wonder, tiny claws digging into the back of Keith’s knee where the lizard was grabbing his leg. 

One of the clefairy approached the stone. Carefully, it places its hand on the giant stone, and all the other clefairy stopped singing and dancing to watch as the clefairy Kuching the stone began to glow with a bright pink light.

The light surrounding the clefairy grew and changed shape, and when it faded away what was left standing in its wake was a much taller and fatter clefable.

“It’s a giant moon stone,” Lance and Keith realized at the same time, Lance actually voicing the thought out loud. “We just watched a clefairy evolve!”

The clefairy all cheered for their new friend, and the dance started again, this time lead by the clefable singing its own name in rhythmic tune.

“We should probably go,” Keith said after a while. “I think we already got lucky enough to see what we did.”

Lance and charmeleon both nodded. Oddly enough, on the way back out, it only took a half hour to reach the cave exit to Cerulean city. Keith didn’t believe in fate much, but after what he’d seen today, it was hard not to feel like maybe, just maybe, he and Lance were supposed to have been lost in that cave today. After all, how else could they have found those cute clefairy?

Lance wouldn't stop gushing about it for the next three days. He didn’t seem to mind that Keith had in fact been there too and didn’t need to hear the story over and over again, and if Keith had really minded hearing it that much, he’d have probably said something himself.


	7. Chapter 7

(Lance, age 15)

Vermillion City was on the water, which meant Lance automatically liked it. He and Keith separated when they got there so that Lance could go fishing, and he didn’t regret a single minute of the four hours he spent sitting on the water because he’d caught himself a real superstar of a pokemon he couldn’t wait to show off.

“Have you heard?” Keith asked when they met up again. “There’s some trainer in front of the gym. They’re challenging everyone who comes near it, and so far no one’s gotten past them for two days.”

Lance grinned. “Sounds perfect. Let’s go meet them, yeah?”

Keith tipped his hat and gave him a smirk back. Oh yeah. It was totally on.

Just for fun, they raced each other to the entrance of the gym. Lance won, but only because he’d been resting his legs while he was fishing for the last few hours instead of wandering around town looking for a firestone for his growlithe.

Anyway, so they reached the gym to look for this mysterious trainer, only to find two people already there instead of one. They weren’t battling each other but did seem ready for a fight, like the pair were waiting around for Keith and Lance to show up.

They looked like twins at a first glance, before Lance realized one of the blondes was actually a girl while the other wasn’t. Both of them had matching glasses and matching grins, though, watching Lance and Keith as they approached with pokeballs drawn.

“Oh perfect,” one of them said. “There’s two of them.”

“Maybe we can get a decent battle then,” said the other. “You two are both trainers, right? Up for a double battle?”

Lance and Keith exchanged surprised glances, both knowing that neither of them had ever been in such a battle before. “What are the rules?”

“Three pokemon for each trainer,” The boy said, “Each of us sends out one at a time, obviously.”

“Anyone can attack any opponent,” The girl continued like they were used to this speech already. “You guys in, or not?”

Lance looked at Keith. Keith was already looking back at him, one eyebrow raised and a small smile tugging at his lips. Oh yeah. That was a look that only asked ‘Are you ready?’

Lance didn’t hesitate. “Let’s do this together.”

Keith sent out his growlithe - yup, still unevolved, just as Lance had suspected. The opponents sent out a gloom and an electabuzz, two fairly powerfully pokemon, especially versus Lance’s water type disadvantage.

Alright, this was his chance! He sent out his first pokemon - the one he had just caught. “Let’s go, feebas!”

All three of the other trainers blinked at the pokemon flopping itself on the ground. “Feeeeebas!” It crowed pathetically, and Keith’s face fell into his hands.

“What is this?” He shouted at Lance, pointing at his latest catch. “Can something like that even battle?!”

“Not really,” Lance admitted, rubbing at the back of his head. “But she needs experience or she’ll never gain the confidence to evolve you know?”

He called back the fish, pulling it back into her pokeball. “Good job, feebas! That’ll do for now!”

The other two trainers shrugged at each other, and Keith threw his hat to the ground. “This is only a three on three battle! You just wasted an entire pokemon!”

“No problem,” Lance waved him off. “Flareon’s strong enough to make up for it!” He tossed out his next pokemon. He really did need to think of a name for this poor flareon. He’d been waiting too he even led to think of a name assuming he’d have a vaporeon, but now that it was a flareon all his ideas were gone out the window. Oh well. He’d come up with one later.

Gloom didn’t stand a chance against their combined flamethrower attacks, and electabuzz was too clumsy to hit Keith’s fast moving Kosmo. The match lasted a few minutes nonetheless, and growlithe didn’t go without taking any hits from that powerful electric type pokemon the boy twin had sent out to spite his superior agility.

The next pokemon the twins sent out were, funnily enough, a jolteon and a leafeon. Keith recalled Kosmo with a smirk, sending out his own unnamed vaporeon to make an all eevee battle on the field. 

“Vaporeon, use aurora beam on leafeon!” Keith commanded, at the same time Lance was shouting at flareon to use sand attack to distract that jolteon. The leafeon took a hit but didn’t go down yet, and the battle raged on for even longer than the first one had.

Vaporeon took a hit from jolteon and went down, and Keith clicked his tongue and sent Kosmo back out to finish the battle. Flareon and Jolteon took each other out while the girl trainer was withdrawing her injured leafeon to send out a tangela. The boy sent out a flaafy to match his sister’s tangela, and Keith and Lance both withdrew their own injured pokemon.

They exchanged one more glance. Grinned at each other. And then both sent out their individual vulpix, Snowbelle trilling with delight to be back on the field of battle. 

The funnest part of the battle, Lance decided with a bark of laughter, was finding a way to work with Keith with only the barest exchanges of information. A glance here, a single word barked there, and his partner reacted instantly to work in tandem with Lance, their pokemon following their orders in perfect harmony. 

In the end they won easily to spite Lance’s slight waste of a first pokemon, because his pokemon were just that cool and badass and pretty and perfect. And Keith’s were pretty good, too, of course.

That had been so exhilarating! Lance had always loved battling against Keith more than anything, but hot sweet jesus had it been fun to fight side by side with him, too. They’d have to do that again, for sure! Too bad all gyms were one on one, it’d be fun to take on the Pokemon League with Keith instead of against him. Ah, well. Either way was fun in Lance’s book.

Defeated, the twins offered their hands to shake. “I’m Matt,” the boy introduced. 

“And I’m Pidge,” his sister finished. “That was a really good battle, guys! Wanna exchange phone numbers and fight again sometime?”

“Yeah!” Lance nodded eagerly. “I’m Lance, and this is Keith! It was nice to meet you!”

“I can introduce myself, you know,” Keith muttered. 

Lance just laughed. “You had fun though, right?”

Picking his hat up off the ground and righting it on his head, Keith give a small smile. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I really did.”

Yeah. They’d TOTALLY have to do this again sometime.


	8. Chapter 8

(Keith, age 16)

Keith and Lance had been letting their pokemon spend too much time out of their pokeballs.

That wasn’t a statement Keith had previously thought possible. There were trainers who let a certain pokemon of their out of their ball to follow them all the time, and Keith had spent three years rotating out his pokemon in the same fashion. The problem was that Lance had been doing the same, giving their pokemon plenty of time to spend together. Too much time together. 

What qualified as too much time together, you may ask? A freakin’ egg, that’s what.

And no, for the record, it wasn’t even their vaporeon and flareon who left it, attached as they were to each other. No, to Keith’s utter surprise, it was his vulpix who was the little traitor, spending too much time with Snowbelle one night and leaving everyone to deal with an egg mysteriously appearing the next morning.

The little snot even had the gall to look proud of himself. God Keith’s pokemon were all so smug, he didn’t know how he put up with them.

Or what they’d were supposed to do with this egg.

“A baby, Keith!” Lance was cooing, cradling the egg in his arms. “We’re gonna have a baby together!”

Feeling a blush rise to his cheeks, Keith rolled his eyes. “It’s still just a pokemon, Lance. We can keep it in a pokeball and everything.”

“No, it’s an EGG! Eggs don’t go in pokeballs, they go into our arms to be treated with LOVE!” He leaned down to boop his vulpix’s nose with his own. “You know I raised Snowbelle here from an egg, right? Look at how strong and cool she became because of the love I treated her with!”

Keith hadn’t known that, actually. “You did?” Snowbelle chirped at him.

“I know, right? I can’t believe it either. My baby girl, already ready to raise babies of her own. I’m so proud.”

Snowbelle crooned, and Keith’s own vulpix rubbed his head against hers affectionately. The proud parents, ladies and gentlemen. 

“Well, obviously I’ll be taking care of the egg, since I’ve done it before.” Lance was saying, loading the egg into his backpack surrounded by a nest of his own clothing. 

“What?” Keith asked, affronted. “Don’t act like it’s just yours! My vulpix is just as responsible as yours was, it’s my baby too, Lance!” 

“Yeah, but,” Lance practically scoffed, one eyebrow raised. “It’s you, Keith. Do you really think you have the grace and patience required to keep a pokemon egg safe? You’ll run off and break it on the first day!”

“I will not!” Keith shouted back. “I know how to take care of things, I’ve been raising Kosmo for longer than you’ve been training pokemon!”

“Who cares how long ago you got your stupid dog? I actually know how to raise an egg safely, and you’ve never even SEEN one before today!”

At their feet, the pair of vulpix crooned unhappily at their argument. Keith and Lance looked at each other, then down at their pokemon. Then, lastly, at the egg.

“Well.” Keith huffed. “You’ve already packed it in your bag. We might as well leave it with you for now.”

“Yeah, I… we can like. Trade off or something,” Lance said, not looking at Keith. “It’s your baby too, after all.”

A baby vulpix. It was silly, but Keith couldn’t help but be excited for it’s arrival.


	9. Chapter 9

(Lance, age 16)

It took weeks for the egg to hatch. Lance had been impatient at the time, but he thinks in retrospect his excitement for the egg to hatch was probably why he’d finally found the magikarp he’d been fishing for for so long.

After all, it’s only when you’re NOT looking for a shiny that one finally stumbles its stupid way onto your fishing line. 

A shiny magikarp, and it was his, all his! Lance was a freakin’ genius fisherman, he was so glad he’d wasted every spare second of his free time with his fishing line in the water! It had all been for this!

Keith’s reaction when Lance showed him his prize was of course, “Oh, were you really still looking for a shiny? It’s been two years, I thought you’d like… let it go.”

Lance had almost thrown he fish right in his stupid face, if it wasn’t, you know. Not good for the pokemon. But screw Keith and his charmeleon both, because as soon as this guy decided he was ready to evolve he’d have a shiny red gyarados and no one would be able to deny Lance was the king of badass.

Anyway, the egg. 

So, Keith and Lance had been taking care of this egg for about a month, trading off who carried it based on whoever was more tired and didn’t feel like dealing with the fairly considerable extra weight the egg provided.

Keith still looked hilariously annoyed with his vulpix for causing this situation in the first place, but Lance could tell he was just as excited as Lance was about the new baby coming. 

Which is why when Lance heard the first cracking of the egg in his backpack on the road to Saffron city, he’d stopped everything and called Keith over to watch.

The egg hatched slowly, with Keith and Lance sitting on the ground eagerly watching the tiny little bundle of love as it exploded into this world.

“Oh my god,” Keith gasped as the vulpix hatched out of its egg, snow white tail fluffed up and blue eyes shining with exposure to the new sunlight. “It’s so…  _ tiny _ !”

“It’s so cuuuute,” Lance cooed, reaching out to pet the vulpix’s itty-bitty little head. “I love babies, Keith. Love babies so much.”

“It’s so tiny,” Keith said again. “So small.”

Lance laughed, picking up the newborn baby and cradling it in his arms. “You wanna hold her?”

Keith quickly shook his head, no. “I’d drop it and she’d DIE.”

Lance laughed again. “No she wouldn’t,” he paused. “Or… he wouldn’t? It’s still too early to tell, huh.”

Keith make a pathetic noise, hands twitching mid-air like he wanted nothing more in this world than to touch the baby. “It won’t bite if you pet it, you know!” Lance laughed, and Keith tentatively reached out to stroke the fur on top of vulpix’s tiny head.

Keith made a strangled noise like a dying skitty high in his throat, face turned bright red in a blush. It was almost as cute as he vulpix was. Almost.

“Come on, we can’t fawn over him all day,” Lance said, cradling the vulpix in his arms. “Let’s get to Saffron’s pokemon center, and make sure nothing’s wrong with this little guy.”

Keith nodded, adjusting his hat like it could hide his blush. “Yeah, let’s… let’s go.”

It was only another hour to reach Saffron, and when they went to the pokemon center the nurse checked the vulpix out, declared it a boy in perfect health, and returned it to Keith and Lance to figure out what the hell to do with the silly little angel now. 

The fact of the matter was, Keith and Lance were both pretty conservative when it came to catching random pokemon and sending them to the bank. Neither of them had full parties of six yet but they did both already have a vulpix on their team, so training another baby vulpix from scratch just seemed kind of… pointless?

Not to mention the fact that Keith and Lance both had equal claim on the baby. It wasn’t a matter of whether or not the baby was wanted that was in question - it was a matter of whether or not Keith and Lance could actually take care of the little thing while they were off climbing mountains looking for rare pokemon. 

Which meant what they stumbled on when they left the pokemon center was probably fate. A pretty blonde girl in pigtails was tripping over the curb, spilling a bag full jars all over the sidewalk when she chose to protect her own face over the contents of her bag.

Lance and Keith both rushed over to help her without thinking, making sure she hadn’t injured herself when she fell and then offering to help carry the contents of her now broken bag.

“Where did you need to go?” Lance asked, picking up several jars full of what looked like pokemon food. 

“Just to the restaurant around the corner, it’s not very far,” She smiled back. “My name is Romelle, by the way.”

“I’m Lance, and this is Keith.” Lance said, and Keith nodded his head in greeting. “We’re pokemon trainers.”

“I could tell,” Romelle laughed, bending over to greet the baby vulpix sitting on the ground waiting patiently for them. “Hello little friend, what’s your name?”

“He doesn’t have me yet. He was just born a few hours ago, and keith here isn’t in the habit of naming his pokemon anyway, so we never thought to.”

“I ask their names when I get them, and they tell me.” Keith said, like any of that sentence just made sense.

“That’s all they can say at all, though, Keith. Does it really count?”

“None of them ever seemed to mind.”

Romelle laughed. “Do you mind if I pet him?” She asked. “I’ve never seen an Alolan vulpix before, I had no idea their eyes would be so adorably blue!”

Keith and Lance looked at each other, then shrugged. “You can carry him to the restaurant if you want,” Lance offered.

“Our hands are kind of full anyway,” Keith finished for him, gesturing at their arms full of Romelle’s jars.

She all but squealed in delight, gathering the baby up into her arms. “I’m so honored! I don’t have a pokemon of my own, since I just traveled here from Galar. Any chance I get to pet one, I just have to take.”

“Then, what do you have all this pokemon food for?”

“The restaurant, probably,” Keith guessed. 

Romelle nodded. “Yes, it’s for the restaurant, but I actually made all these at home myself!” She opened one of the jars to pour some into her hand, offering it up to vulpix to try. He smelled it for a moment, then happily munched down his first meal, home made food in a pretty girl’s arms. What a lucky little guy. “I love cooking, and I think that feeding pokemon is just as important as feeding us humans! Nutrition is important for everyone, after all.”

“But you don’t have a pokemon of your own to try recipes on?” Lance asked, looking at Keith.

Keith was looking right back at him, and they both turned to glance at Romelle and the baby vulpix as everyone walked to the restaurant together. “Not as of yet,” she said.

Keith nodded at Lance. Lance nodded back, and sighed. Damn, and they hadn’t even gotten a chance to play with the little bastard. Oh well, there would always be more pokemon. And they could always come back to Saffron to visit.

“You should keep him,” Lance said firmly. “That vulpix. Me and Keith didn’t know what we were gonna do with him anyway, so this is kind of a perfect solution.”

Romelle blinked, stopping in her tracks to look at the two trainers. “You really mean it? Such a rare and adorable pokemon, and you're willing to just… give him to me?”

“Well, we still own its parents so,” Keith shrugged. “If we wanted we could just breed more vulpix.” Or more eevees, most likely. How FOUR of their pokemon had apparently fallen in love with each other, Lance would never understand.

Romelle smiled at them, and the vulpix chirped happily at her. “I’ll never know how to thank you two.”

That wasn’t so hard. “Well,” Lance grinned. “You could start by treating us to lunch.”

—


	10. Chapter 10

(Keith, Age 17)

“They look kind of…” Lance began, staring out into the field. “Intimidating, all in a group like that. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Keith looked out at the herd of wild ponyta, scattered with evolved rapidash and grazing in the field. “It’s just some ponies, Lance. What harm could they do?”

“Trample you to death,” Lance insisted. “Set you on fire the moment you try to touch them.”

“Dude, are you scared of horses?” 

“Only rapidash!” Lance defended hotly. Paused. “And mudsdale, and sometimes zebstrika.”

Keith’s turn to pause. “Didn’t you grow up on a farm? How can you be afraid of mudsdale if you lived on a farm?”

“I’m afraid of them BECAUSE I lived on a farm!”

Keith considered that. “Did you get kicked in the head?”

Lance flung out an arm to point at the field of ponyta. “Don’t you have a ponyta to go catch?!”

Keith adjusted his hat, signaling to his torracat to follow him as he ducked out from the trees they’d been hiding behind. “I don’t wanna waste any time, so. I’m gonna go for the rapidash, actually.”

Lance’s eyes widened and he flailed a little after Keith. “Don’t get killed, you idiot!”

Which was ridiculous. It was just a herd of wild horses.

Keith crept slowly through the grasses, sneaking up on the ponyta as they grazed. Once they were close enough he signaled to his torracat, gesturing that it should run in and break off one of the three rapidash from the group so Keith could single it out.

Torracat ran in, and a squeal of neighing commenced as the cat picked out the rapidash towards the back and started blowing flames at its feet to try and trip it up. The rapidash reeled, delivering a harsh stomp attack right on poor torracat as the rest of the herd all started going crazy.

Shit, and torracat was caught right in the middle of the rampaging crowd. “Torracat, get out of there!” Keith commanded, reaching for his pokeball to withdraw the still relatively small cat. He’d been chosen for stealth but it looked like Kosmo would be better suited for the job now that the herd had been riled up...

He heard torracat’s familiar yowl, and Keith called after his cat once again, rushing to try and get to it through the herd. He had no need to worry so much though, because the howl was accompanied by a glowing light as his torracat glowed with evolution.

Bursting out of the crowd of wild ponyta was Keith’s adorable new incineroar, about six feet of pure kitty-cat muscle ready to take on whatever these horses had to offer. “That’s my boy, Incineroar!” Keith shouted. “Now grab one of those rapidash by the neck and hold them still for me!”

Incineroar howled a mighty roar, leaping up into the air for some ungodly reason that did not involve Keith’s order, and coming down hard with an elbow to rapidash’s head. 

The rapidash dodged most of the hit to only get a graze, shaking it off with a confused whinny. “Good enthusiasm but that’s not what I told you to do! Try again, Incineroar, hold it still for me!”

The rapidash charged at Keith’s incineroar and Incineroar charged back, grappling the horse with it’s great arms and this time actually following orders to hold it by the horse’s thick neck.

The rest of the herd took the time they were charging at each other to all scatter off, leaving Keith and his pokemon alone with their chosen rapidash. Keith ran up to rapidash’s side, leaping up onto the horse’s back.

Incineroar let go of the rapidash’s neck and leapt out of the way, letting the pokemon go wild with Keith still on his back.

Keith clamped his legs tight around the rapidash’s sides, leaning forward to get a grip on its neck. The rapidash took some time to get used to him, running around the field in huge circles and trying to buck Keith off for a few long minutes before finally settling down and letting Keith ride him.

Keith led the rapidash back to where Lance was watching with a dropped jaw, pointing at Keith like he’d just grown a second head.

“THAT’S NOT HOW YOU CATCH POKEMON, KEITH!” He shouted, for some reason offended. 

Keith slipped off the horse’s back, taking out a pokeball and tapping the button to let Rapidash inside and officially capture it. “What are you talking about? I just did it.”

“You can’t just -“ He flailed. “Jump on a wild horse’s back and instantly TAME IT, Keith! That should have killed you, not caught you a pokemon!”

Keith shrugged. “Incineroar helped,” he said, turning over his shoulder to watch the giant cat charging after them from where Keith had left him in the field. “Right buddy?”

Incineroar roared in delight, wrapping his huge arms around Keith and lifting him up off the ground in a bear hug. “Roooaaarrrr!”

Oh, okay, that was disorienting. Keith was pretty sure he’d never been picked up before in his entire life, so this was… A new thing to get used to, right here.

Lance was just watching from the sidelines as his excitable incineroar gave Keith one last affectionate rib-crushing squeeze before putting him down. “You know you’re a freak, right? Like a total weirdo?”

Keith just smirked. “Hey, Incineroar, don’t you think Lance looks like he could use a hug, too?”

The giant cat rumbled in delight, turning to Lance with outspread arms. Lance swallowed thickly, and Keith laughed.

—


	11. Chapter 11

(Lance, age 17)

  
  


“How were the Seafoam Islands?” Keith asked when Lance got back to Cinnabar. Having elected to stay behind on the island to train his fire-type pokemon, he hadn’t seen Lance’s incredibly impressive pokemon battle and subsequent catch, and Lance was more than happy to fill him in on everything he’d missed.

“Perfect as planned!” Lance grinned. “And the best part is, we don’t have to ride the ferry to get back to the mainland!”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? You find yourself a flying pokemon to join me and Charizard, then?”

“Hell no,” Lance smirked, throwing out his pokeball. “I caught THIS!”

Out popped his brand new lapras, pouring out of her pokeball and straight into the water with a loud trill. “Lapras!”

“I’m calling her Pearl. Isn’t she just the cutest?” Lance cooed, petting his hard-fought new pokemon on her massive neck. 

Keith only barely looked impressed. “Oh, so is that where you catch lapras from? I heard they’re pretty common ride pokemon in Alola, I didn’t know you could find them so easily in Kanto, too.”

“It was NOT easy, you useless son of a prick!” Lance shouted, affronted. “And lapras are rare and beautiful flowers that need to be appreciated! Do you know how hard I had to fight against this sweet baby to weaken her enough to catch? Do you know how tough it is to catch and maintain something as large as a lapras?!”

“Not really,” Keith admitted easily. “But I guess it must be pretty difficult, since you’re making such a fuss about it.”

“I’m not fussy, you’re just cold-hearted!” Lance snapped. 

And instantly felt bad about snapping at him, because Keith frowned that little pout of his and asked, “Cold-hearted?” In the most pathetic little voice. “Sorry, you’re right. Pearl is really pretty, Lance, I’m excited for you that you caught her.”

Which like, really, how was Lance supposed to stay mad at THAT? He disguised a sigh as a huff, and heard himself saying, “Well, since you’re sorry, I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to ride her together.”

Keith’s eyebrows both raised. “Both of us? We’ve got a lot of water to cross to get back to the mainland, can she really carry two people that far?”

Pearl trilled confidently and Lance grinned. “But of course! She’s super strong, and you weigh next to nothing anyway!”

Keith huffed, but was still smiling as he approached the lapras Lance had parked in the harbor. “Does she need some kind of saddle or something?” 

“Not in Kanto, she doesn’t! Just get on her shell and grab onto her neck, and I’ll get on behind you.”

A moment of brief hesitation that was hilarious when Lance had seen him haul himself onto a wild horse like it was nothing, Keith climbed onto Pearl’s back. Lance got on after him, soon realizing how little room he actually had on the giant shell’s back and that he’d have to sit awfully close to Keith.

Pearl took off towards Pallet Town, fast enough that Lance had to wrap his arms around Keith’s waist to keep steady on the water. Meaning he had to spend the next three hour ride home with Keith practically in his lap, and it was all because of his own suggestion they share the ride pokemon. Oh jesus… he really should have thought of that in advance. 

It wasn't that it was weird or anything! In fact maybe the opposite was the problem. Keith’s waist was slim and his hair was long enough to tickle Lance’s face if he leaned in close enough, and he smelled like dirty and earthy like the volcano on Akala Island smelled and now Lance was close enough to smell it even over the salty scent of the ocean they were surfing across. 

“This is pretty relaxing,” Keith said once the mainland was in sight. “I like it much better than the ferry, that’s for sure.”

“Right?” Lance beamed proudly. “That’s the smooth ride only a lapras can provide! And with her defense and special skills, she’s just as tough in battle as she is useful in daily life!”

Keith laughed, “I get it, I get it. But you know what this means, right?”

Lance shook his head. 

“You get to ride with me on my Rapidash.”

Lance swallowed, deep in his throat. “Can’t I just fly on Charizard, instead?”

“He can only hold one of us at a time.” Keith said. “I mean you can borrow him if you want, but that’s not gonna get you off the hook with Rapidash.”

“Why thoooough,” Lance whined, arms tightening around Keith’s waist until they got close enough to land that Pearl started slowing down and Lance had no excuse to keep holding on to Keith’s body anymore. “Rapidash still scare me!”

“That’s sort of exactly why we need to do it, Lance.” Keith said, laughter in his evil, evil voice.

Lance tried to keep arguing in his own favor, but a half hour later when they were safely on land again saw Keith popping Rapidash out of his pokeball and Lance gripping onto Keith’s waist again, this time for dear life as the three of them rocketed off at 55 miles per hour. 


	12. Chapter 12

(Keith, Age 17)

“Our pokemon are getting kind of restless, don’t you think?” Lance said one day while they were in Celadon City’s mall shopping for supplies. And by supplies, they meant as much pokemon food as they could reasonably carry now that both of them had parties full of ever-evolving and increasingly huge pokemon. 

“Incineroar is always restless. He’s a wrestler. Restless is just how they come.” Was how Keith chose to answer.

“No, I mean,” Lance hesitated, “The gay ones.”

That gave Keith pause. “The what now?”

“You know, Flareon and Vaporeon.” Lance said, like it was obvious. “The ones who are gay for each other?”

“Wait, is your flareon not a girl?”

Lance buried his face in his hands. “We have known each other for literal years! How did you not notice they’re both boys?”

Keith considered that. “Well, it was probably because they fell in love so I just assumed that one must be...? Huh. Now I feel kind of like an asshole.”

Lance, being exactly as much of an asshole as Keith was, laughed. 

He ended up explaining his idea to let their two pokemon go on a sort of date together, to which Keith agreed with a shrug. A date could be fun, right? As long as Keith wasn’t like, in charge of deciding what they did or anything. 

The instant they let their pokemon out of their balls the two of them curled together and chirped happily, rubbing their little faces against one another. 

“Good news, fellas,” Lance said, crouching down to their level. “We’re gonna let the two of you get some time together! How about a date to the Pokemon Park near the gym, hm?”

The pair of pokemon hopped up and bounded around in excitement, nuzzling Lance and Keith’s legs as their trainers laughed. They continued to do so the entire walk to the park, tripping Keith and Lance up as they wound happily around their legs like overexcited cats.

“Go on then,” Lance laughed when they got to the park entrance, gesturing at the slides and tunnels and tire swings all set up for pokemon to play on. “Have a ball!”

Their pokemon ran off together, stopping to bump heads and nuzzle one another again before romping off to play in the park. 

Keith watched them with a smile, enjoying the sight of his beloved pokemon having fun with its lover. It wasn’t exactly the height of romance, but it was cute and it made Keith happy to see young love in one of its purest forms. 

The height of romance, huh… He cast a sidelong glance at Lance, who was watching his flareon bound around with a look of unfettered joy. With that grin on his face, he looked kind of handsome, in a way Keith had never bothered to consider before. 

“Hey,” Lance said suddenly, looking at Keith. “I hear an ice cream truck. Stay here and watch the little ones while I go grab us some?”

Keith nodded, and watched as Lance ran off with a smile. He came back with two bars, one chocolate for Keith and one Rainbow Rocket Pop for himself. He hadn’t even had to ask what Keith wanted and he still got him the right thing... They really knew each other well by now, huh?

So why did it take until now for Keith to wonder about this sort of thing? The thought of Lance and dating… No, the thought of dating at all, hadn’t crossed Keith’s mind until somewhere around right this moment. 

He shook the thought off. It was stupid. They’d been friends for years now, if they were going to start dating wouldn’t they have already done that ages ago? Keith was just letting the mood get to his head. Lance didn’t wanna date him and Keith didn’t wanna date Lance, he was just… Being weird. 

Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what Lance thought, when he handed Keith his ice cream with a smile. What he thought when he grabbed onto Keith’s hand to drag him further onto the playground, holding onto it for as long as a full sixteen seconds before letting go. Not that Keith had been counting or anything.

They spent a few hours at the park, playing with their pokemon and watching them flirt. Keith couldn't claim he had Lance on his mind the entire time, but… He couldn’t say he didn’t think of him, either.

\--


	13. Chapter 13

(Lance, age 17)

They surfed over to the where the local Power Plant lay hidden around the bend of a river, stepping inside to find it out of commission and nearly pitch black inside. 

“What happened to all the workers?” Keith asked, turning on the flashlight on his phone. 

“It’s a self-sustaining plant, there should only be one or two workers on shift and they got driven out by all the pokemon.”

A rattata hissed at them as it scurried past, and the two of them made their way deeper into the plant. “Is that why the plant shut down? Because of the infestation?”

Lance shot Keith a glare, “Weren’t you right there with me while that guy was asking us for help? YES, because of the infestation! Why else would they ask for pokemon trainers and not actual professional power plant workers, Keith?”

Keith shrugged, not even having the decency to look embarrassed. “I don’t know, I wasn’t really listening.”

If his hands hadn’t been occupied by his own flash light, he would have buried his face in his hands. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

They kept on going in further into the plant, doing their job of battling and driving out voltorb and magneton as they went.

“Oh look!” Lance pointed out, aiming his flashlight. “A pikachu! Hey there little fat guy, what are you doing down here?”

“Chewing on power lines,” Keith said, shooing the cute little mouse away. “He’s part of the problem we’re here to solve, Lance.”

Lance just scoffed, disappointed. “Like you would know anyway.”

Keith rolled his eyes, because he was no fun. “You’re the one that agreed to this job, don’t go ragging on me when you’re not the one taking it seriously.”

“You’re the least fun person I’ve ever been best friends with.” Lance drawled, moving them further into the plant. If Keith pouted, Lance wasn’t looking to see it.

They dragged on further into the plant, meticulously ridding the area of wild electric type pokemon for upwards of an hour. The strange part was, the deeper they went, the less they needed their flashlights. There was a light glowing deep in the furthest depths of the power plant, and the closer they got to it the brighter it seemed to glow, until the room was so brightly lit it was almost broad daylight inside the plant’s walls.

“What do you think that is? Is it the generator working?” Lance asked, turning off his light and putting his phone away. 

“I don’t think so,” Keith said with a little shake of his head. “Something about this feels… weird. I’m getting chills down my spine, like something is… off here.”

“Can’t be ghosts,” Lance said, secretly agreeing with the odd sensation tingling up and down his spine. “Ghosts wouldn’t be so… Bright.”

They rounded the last corner getting closer and closer to the source of the light, and momentarily had to shield their eyes from the brightness. No sooner had their eyes adjusted to the light that they heard a loud crow, and Lance realized that sitting before them and draining the electricity out of a generator was a great big glowing yellow bird.

“Holy…” Lance whispered, feeling his limbs start to shake.

“...Shit,” Keith completed the expletive for him, face drowned in awe.

The Zapdos sitting before them crowed again, and a beat of its massive wings brought a thunderclap that echoed through the entire power plant, so loud it was almost deafening.

“What do we do?” Lance asked, hand clenched around his pokeball. “Do we… do we try and drive it out of here?”

“I wanna fight it,” Keith whispered back, pulling out a pokeball. “Lance, I want to try and battle it.”

“That’s a terrible idea!” Lance hissed back, grabbing Keith’s arm. “Just LOOK at this thing! It’s like nothing I’ve ever SEEN before! This is one of those goddamn legendary birds you hear about in rumors, you can’t just FIGHT IT!”

Keith’s yellow-lit face was completely determined. “Why not? It’s a pokemon isn’t it?” And with that, he threw out a pokeball and summoned his incineroar. 

Tch! Lance didn’t know how he kept forgetting how difficult Keith could be as a person. Which of his pokemon wouldn’t be instantly wiped out by an electric attack… “Go, Snowbelle! I believe in you!”

The zapdos looked down at them, shooting blazing glare at all four of the peons gathered before it. 

“Incineroar, go for its neck!” Keith shouted, while on the other side Lance called for an aurora veil from Snobelle to try and protect from any incoming attacks.

Incineroar didn’t even get close. With one beat of its wings the zapdos was lifting itself into the air, deftly dodging the giant cat’s attack. Another beat of its wings and a thunderous crow and the zapdos was filling the room with lightning, shocking the two thinly protected pokemon and blinding the humans with its ungodly bright light.

By the time vision returned to their eyes, the zapdos was gone, and the room was once again bathed in darkness only broken by a single open window leading to the outside world. 

Keith and Lance rushed to their pokemon, calling the damaged duo back into their pokeballs.

“Well that was a tremendously stupid idea,” Lance eventually said, watching as power slowly flickered back to life in the plant.

Keith just stared at the spot where zapdos had disappeared from, awe painting over his sharp features. “A single attack and he blew us all away,” he said quietly. Then turned to Lance. “I wanna fight it again. Not now, but - when we’re stronger. I want to see what we can really do against an honest to god legendary pokemon.”

Lance looked at him, at the scorch marks marring his cheek from where the lightning had grazed him. Looked back at the window the zapdos had escaped through. 

“Yeah…” he said eventually. “Me too.”

\--


	14. Chapter 14

(Keith, age 18)

It was decided. Keith had been thinking about this for a long time now, and after their encounter with that legendary pokemon something had changed. It had made Keith want for more out of his pokemon journey, made him want to strive to achieve even greater heights than he’d ever known before.

“Lance,” he told his friend once Keith had his goal in mind. “I wanna enter the    
Pokemon League Tournament.”

Lance looked at him. Finished taking the sip from his soda. And shrugged, “Okay. This year’s sign-ups should start soon anyway, so now’s a good time to decide that.”

Keith beamed a grin at him. He knew he could count on Lance.

It took a few days to make their way through Victory Road to get to the finals, carving their way through the middle of a mountain and battling a plethora of other trainers on their way to the Indigo League.

The stadium was huge, bigger than any gym they’d ever been to and then some. Big enough that there was a full town surrounding it, so fans and competitors could find lodging and food during the several days the tournament took to reach its completion.

Luckily for Keith and Lance, said lodging was provided for them by the League, and so they wouldn’t have to pay for their hotel room. Not as lucky was the part where they were running out of rooms, which naturally prompted the two of them to say they were fine with sharing a room.

They might have phrased that better. It might have made a difference when they got up to their room, and realized instead of two beds they’d been given a single double bed. 

“Well,” Lance said airily. “I suppose we should have expected as much. What uh… Do you think we should do about it?”

Keith considered that. “I mean, we’ve got sleeping bags. We can just trade off who sleeps on the floor…?”

Lance made a face. “That sounds… so lame, though. We’re finally in a decent hotel with a real bed, Keith. I don’t wanna spend half the nights we’re here sleeping on the floor like we’re back in our tents.”

Keith shrugged. “What, you want the bed then? I don’t care.”

“No,” Lance clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “I’m saying it’s a big bed, why don’t we just share it?”

Keith bit his lip, thinking about the suggestion. They’d never shared a bed before, not even when they stayed at pokemon centers instead of staying in their tents. It was a reasonable enough suggestion, they’d slept on couches side by side at pokemon centers before, so what real difference would this make?

So he agreed, and all but forgot about the suggestion until it was time to come back to their hotel room to get some sleep before sign-ups started the next morning. 

And then came time for them to climb into bed together. And suddenly, for reasons he couldn’t quite name, Keith was... nervous, maybe? Excited didn’t seem like the right word, but at least it explained the way his heart was beating in his chest as he watched Lance slide under the covers and knew he’d be following just a moment after.

Eventually, Keith forced himself into the bed, slipping in under the sheets on the other side of Lance’s body. He could feel how warm Lance was beside him already, and Keith had to tell himself it was no different from sleeping with one of his pokemon and forced his eyes to close.

It took a while to relax. He concentrated on his breathing, trying to slow it down in case Lance could hear him and thought it was weird. Could Lance tell he was awake? Could he tell he was awake and thought it was weird that Keith was still so wound up when they were just trying to go to sleep? Could he feel how tense Keith was from his side of the bed? Or was Keith being ridiculous?

Keith took in a deep shuddering breath, and felt his eyes open. They only barely adjusted to the dark of the room, but he could see the outline of Lance’s body in the bed, the shape of his back and the curl of his hair against the back of his neck. 

He wanted to move closer. Wanted to bury his face in the back of that long neck, wanted to take a deep inhale of breath and take in the smell of Lance’s skin. Feel the warmth radiating off his body, maybe even scoot close enough to press his body to Lance’s back and feel the hard outline of his body against Keith’s…

Keith shivered, and forced himself to turn around and face away from Lance. 

Stupid. He had to stop thinking of Lance like this. Their friendship was already unusual enough as it was, Keith didn’t need to complicate it any more by getting…  _ weird _ . 

He shut his eyes again, forced the line of his own shoulders to relax, and willed himself to count mareep jumping fences until he wasn’t thinking about how close he and Lance were anymore and he could finally lose himself to sleep.

And then of course, the next morning he woke up to find himself rolled into the middle of the bed, face buried into Lance’s shoulder while Lance snored into the top of Keith’s head, one arm slung around Keith’s own shoulders to hold him close as they slept.

Well. That just figured.

Whatever, Keith resolved to himself. It was only for a few nights. He might as well enjoy it while he had the chance.

So he took in that deep breath of air, and enjoyed the first few minutes of the morning from exactly where he was.

—


End file.
